Between The Books
by CUtopia
Summary: Fay works at Flourish and Blotts over the summer holidays. Cleaning the Mischief Section obviously is a wink of fate.


Entry for **"History of Magic"** at **"Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry (Challenges and Assignments)"**

 **Task:** I would like you to write about a character visiting Diagon Alley. It can be in any way you see fit, but you will get an extra bonus **10 points** for _not_ writing about them shopping for school supplies. However, you must not just reference to the shop, you must have your character actually talking about it or visiting it. Minimum 600 words

 **Prompt:** Flourish and Blotts

Entry for the **"Chocolate Frog Card Club"** at **"Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry (Challenges and Assignments)"**

(bronze) Elladora Black; **Prompts:** Gift, Whirlwind, Mother, Tray

Entry for the "Sims 3 Progression Challenge" - Dream: **Read a fictional book!** (100) - Task: Incorporate any HP Universe Fictional Book into your story.

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It was a early summer morning as Fay Dunbar made her way down Diagon Alley from the Leaky Cauldron. The shopping street was empty, except for the few shopkeepers who were building up their outdoor displays and some greeted her, as she had become a rather familiar face to them over the summer.

Fay had convinced her mother to let her work at Flourish and Blotts for this summer, to earn some money for the trip to Australia her best friend Leanne and she were planning to do after graduating from Hogwarts. It was going to be expensive, even with the money her parents wanted to give her as a graduation gift, and she did not wanted to hang on to their pockets too much.

Her boss Rina, the daughter of Mr Blotts, was already at the bookshop, running around between the bookshelves like a whirlwind, bewitching new books to sort themselves in the categories in the right sections.

"Good morning, Fay! I bought us some breakfast from the bakery!," she exclaimed happily, gesturing towards a tray that was standing on top of the sales counter. "The tea will be ready in a minute."

"Thank you," Fay answered, a warm smile on her face as she recognized her favourite vanilla pods lying on a plate, next to some other nice snacks.

"No problem – we will need some treats to get through the day, with the wonderful weather outside... Don't get me wrong, I am glad that you are here to help, but if I had the choice, I would prefer lying in the sun and go for a swim with my friends over working in a dusty bookshop."

Fay shrugged her shoulders as she briefly glanced outside through the big windows, seeing the already warm sun dipping Diagon Alley into a bright light.

"I will have enough time to fry myself in the sun when I am in Australia, bathing in the pacific," she sighed, forcing herself to turn away from the wonderful summer atmosphere. "And for that, I will need the money. What can I do first?"

Rina came over, taking the small sachet with the tea leaves from the teapot and pouring some of the steaming hot liquid into the cups.

"I think it would be good to have you checking the books in the Mischief Section. Ironically, these are the books that are mistreated very often. But first, we have our breakfast, you will need your strength."

These quiet mornings before the first customers came in where the reason why Fay never regretted once to have taken up this holiday job offer. Rina was a charismatic young woman who joked around a lot and made Fay forget that she was normally pretty shy and had problems to speak freely with people who were complete strangers.

But during the last weeks at Flourish and Blotts, Fay had sensed how she became a more open person, and by now she trusted herself to speak and to serve customers on her own – a task she would have run away from before the summer.

Also, Fay had had a lot of time to search for more books to read whenever there were no customers around, and Rina always grinned when Fay were sitting around during this spare time, completely absorbed into the worlds that were lying between the pages. Rina had even managed to make her father agree on giving Fay a employee discount, ignoring the young womans exclamation that she did not wanted them to make any special exceptions for her.

She felt pretty comfortable in the bookshop, and while Leanne was regarding her own holiday job as a burden, Fay outrightly enjoyed to be strolling around between the shelves every day.

"Well, at least I won't be longing for the sun so much back there – as I won't be able to see it anyway," Fay sighed, quickly finishing off her vanilla pod before taking her wand, a duster and a bottle of water with her, heading towards the Mischief Section, which was located in the farthest corner of the first floor of the shop. It was a pretty hidden place, a narrow niche of two times two square metres, only accessable through a gap no wider than the width of a average adult.

Thanks to that, it was a preferred hiding place for children who were bored about being in the shop while their parents were searching for books.

Fay entered the section and sighed as she spotted a dozen tattered books on first sight. In this moment, she was incredibly happy that she had turned seventeen in March, and therefore would be allowed to use magic during work.

She spent the whole morning mending books that had been hexed with the curses that were written inside of them, obviously to try these spells and see if they were worth the galleons. It was something unique about the Mischief Section, that they were tampered with without being bought.

It was nearly lunch time as Fay was wrestling with the copy of "Madcap Magic for Wacky Warlocks", which obviously was bewitched to try and smack the person who touched it over the head. Suddenly, she heard someone chuckling behind her and whipped around, her arms slung around the book to keep it from attacking her.

She immediately knew that it was Fred and not George Weasley who was standing in front of her, causing the two of them to fill the narrow room completely.

"You look like you could use some help," he grinned, waving his wand shortly to cause the book to stop struggling, looking incredibly handsome while doing it. The sparkle in his brown eyes caused old feelings to resurface inside of her, and the full-grown crush she had had on him back when he had still been at Hogwarts. Her heart was racing and she could feel herself blushing to the colour of a tomato.

"T-thanks," she stuttered, placing the book back in the shelf before shoving a wild strand of her brown hair back behind her ear.

"No problem," Fred smirked, burrying his hands in the pockets of his muggle jeans. "Now that you owe me, would you go and have a coffee with me?"

He had said it rather casually, even though she had thought that she had spotted a hint of nervousness in the way he shifted from one foot to the other.

"Sorry, I don't have time," Fay mumbled, even though she had originally wanted to burst out with a positive answer. But somehow, the thought of being alone with him was setting her earned self-consciousness back to zero.

"Come on, Fay, go and have lunch with him," Rina exclaimed as she walked past the section entrance, carrying a big stack of books. "Your break will start in five minutes and he has been standing in front of the shop at lunchtime for the last two weeks."

"You... you did?," she breathed, a warm feeling filling her stomach and Fred blushed, running one hand through his red hair before answering:"Well... I just... I just did not have the courage and... I, I think I might have fallen in love with you and I hope it does not sound creepy that I was always trying to catch a glimpse of you when you were coming to work and... and I should go now, before this gets any more awkward."

He turned to go, but Fay, acting on a spontaneous feeling, grabbed his hand and pulled him back, even daring to press a kiss to his cheek.

"Lunch is it, then," she smiled, her heart jumping as he returned it, relief showing on his face.


End file.
